Cryptocurrencies were lower across the board after the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Binance Holdings Ltd. of mishandling funds and lying to regulators.
Bitcoin fell about 2.9% to $26,458 as of 11:45 a.m. in New York. Binance Coin, the native token of the ecosystem of the world’s biggest digital asset exchange, slumped 5.2% to around $285.
The charges are the latest regulatory action against Binance and its co-founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao. In March, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleged that Binance and Zhao routinely broke American derivatives rules. The Justice Department has been investigating whether Binance was used illegally to let Russians skirt US sanctions and move money, Bloomberg reported in May.
“People have basically already priced this in,” Austin Campbell, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, said in a direct message. “This is more a confirmation of what people are already expecting and will just continue the push of putting everything offshore and leaving the US behind.”
Zhao appeared to downplay the allegations, sending a Twitter message that reference the number 4, which he has been using to reference ‘FUD.’ That is shorthand for fear, uncertainty and doubt — a phrase used to describe the waves of anxiety that can flare up in crypto in the wake of last year’s market rout and a series of corporate blowups.
“The SEC going after Binance is no surprise, as they have already gone after a number of other centralized crypto exchanges and it was likely only a matter of time before they took action against the biggest player in the space,” said Jeffrey Blockinger, chief counsel at decentralized exchange Vertex Protocol.
